By Edie Lau, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Apr. 16--Tom Phong is not dead, and his wife is not in critical condition.
Phong's cousin Luc Phung traveled to Vietnam recently, but he didn't get sick. He has a chest X-ray to prove it.
All the same, rumors have been flying since the beginning of the month that Phong, his family members and employees are sick with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and that their Welco supermarkets are a source of the feared infection.
The false stories and consequent drop in business at Tom Phong's two Sacramento groceries got so bad that local dignitaries converged Tuesday at the Welco on Fruitridge Road to show that everything is OK.
'We went into the store and grabbed a wonderful Granny Smith apple off one display and a nectarine off another display and ate them right there to show that it's perfectly safe to shop and dine in Welco,' said Sacramento City Councilman Dave Jones, who organized the gathering.
Health anxieties have been rising around the world since the appearance of SARS, a respiratory illness that starts like the flu and sometimes deteriorates into a deadly pneumonia. The outbreak originated in mainland China in November and is present now in 22 countries. As of Tuesday, the World Health Organization counted 154 deaths out of 3,225 probable cases.
The SARS tally in the United States was 193 on Monday, the latest day for which figures were available. No deaths have resulted.
California has 43 suspected cases of SARS, almost all associated with travel to Asia. Three cases involve Sacramento County residents. Dr. Glennah Trochet, the county public health officer, said this week that no evidence exists of SARS spreading within this community.
Trochet also sought to assure the public Tuesday at the Welco gathering, as did state Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and former California Secretary of State March Fong Eu.
Welco owner Phong said he began in early April to hear of rumors that his 49-year-old cousin Luc, who recently returned from a month's trip to Vietnam, had SARS.
The north Vietnam city of Hanoi is a SARS hot spot, but Phong said Luc was nowhere near Hanoi; he visited Ho Chi Minh City in the south. Moreover, Phong said, his cousin wasn't ill.
Nevertheless, he urged Luc, who works as a price-marker at Welco, to see a doctor.
A one-page document signed by Dr. James Moorefield of Sacramento Radiology Medical Group shows that an X-ray was taken April 2 and concludes: 'Normal chest.'
Phong made multiple copies of the statement and has been distributing it widely.
But the rumors just became more distant from the truth. Tom Phong, folks said, had died of SARS, and his wife was seriously ill.
The Internet exacerbated matters.
Jerry Chong received an e-mail from an acquaintance who was passing along a message from someone else. 'It said that SARS had been discovered at the Asian market Welco and that they checked it out and it was true,' said Chong, a Sacramento lawyer.
'The funny thing, it said they checked with The Sacramento Bee and it was true.'
Chong didn't believe it for a moment, because he'd been following SARS in the newspaper and knew Welco wasn't involved.
He wrote a message refuting the rumors and posted it electronically through a computer distribution system of the Council of Asian Pacific Islanders Together for Advocacy and Leadership (CAPITAL).
Meanwhile, an anonymous woman called the Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services and reported rumors about Welco and SARS to epidemiologist Helen Zheng.
So on Thursday, Zheng visited the market. She chatted with Phong -- seeing for herself that he was not dead or dying -- learned about his cousin's recent trip to Vietnam and clean bill of health, and took an informal look at the employees.
'We didn't have any coughing, and (everything) looks fine,' Zheng said.
A co-worker from the environmental health arm of the department checked out the market for food hygiene and sanitation and found that that, too, was satisfactory, Zheng said.
Not every customer believed the rumors, of course. Muoi Duong said she's continued to make the 10-minute bicycle ride from her home to the Fruitridge Road grocery two to three times a week. But not without a fight.
'My son scolded me,' Duong said in Chinese. 'He said, 'Don't shop there. Someone's died.' '
Enough people have stayed away that Phong estimates receipts at his stores on Fruitridge and Del Rio Road in South Land Park combined are down by some 30 percent over the past two weeks.
Councilman Jones said that when he heard about Phong's troubles, he immediately wanted to help.
'Tom is a great American success story,' Jones said, rattling off Phong's biography. 'He emigrated to this country from Vietnam by way of Hong Kong, didn't have any resources, didn't know a word of English, went to Hiram Johnson, worked and saved his money and opened a store on Fruitridge at a time when no one was willing to invest there. He's been a big part of what's made Fruitridge (commercial revitalization) successful.'
Phong opened the Fruitridge Welco in 1993 and the Del Rio Road store in 2000.
While no other local business has been hit with SARS rumors as much as Welco, Assemblyman Steinberg said the problem is not just Welco's.
'I hope the message goes out not just on behalf of Tom Phong and Welco, but for any of the businesses out there, because this may not be the last of the rumor and innuendo,' he said. 'I just think it's important that we reassure people that they can shop and go about their lives in a safe manner.'
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(c) 2003, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
